346 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Avocet in Sussex.— On July 1st, while at Pett Level, near Hastings, 

 I had offered to me, a few minutes after it was shot, an adult female Avocet 

 (Recwvirostra avocetta). Mr. Bristow, of St. Leonards, to whom I took it 

 for preservation, gave me the following particulars: — Weight, 9£ ozs. I 

 plumage good, but rather bare at the breast, as the bird had evidently beeu 

 sitting. In its gizzard were about twenty small worms. Mr. Borrer, in 

 his ■ Birds of Sussex,' gives, I think, 1870 as the date of the last one 

 recorded to have been met with in the country, but Mr. Bristow tells me 

 he had two others from the neighbourhood of Camber Sands some six or 

 seven years ago. I found on questioning the man who shot the one I pur- 

 chased that there were two together, aud that he wounded the second one, 

 but it got away. Two days after one was sent to Mr. Bristow from near 

 the same place, aud he found on skinning it that it had been wounded 

 before. I have no doubt therefore that it was the same bird. It was also 

 a female, but weighed an ounce heavier than the one first obtained, and 

 stood higher on its legs. — George W. Bradshaw (Hastings). 



[It is much to be regretted that public opinion or private enterprise is 

 not strong enough to put a stop to the repeated infringement of the Wild 

 Birds Protection Act, which is brought to our notice by correspondents in 

 various parts of the country. It would give very little trouble to apply 

 for a summons, aud the offender on conviction would have to pay the 

 costs. — Ed.] 



Crossbills in Somersetshire. — A tlock of from fifteen to twenty Cross- 

 bills appeared on the Scotch firs in our avenue on August 25th, and their 

 peculiar twitter first attracted my attention. A farmer complains that great 

 damage has been done in his orchard to some early apples by birds " that 

 cut them open, and then leave them"; so the Crossbills have evidently been 

 about here for some little time. I have heard of others having beeu noticed 

 at Newgale, in North Pembrokeshire, in the last week of June. — Murray 

 A. Mathew (Buckland Dinham, Frome). 



INSECTS. 

 Tamed Butterflies.— The late Mr. J. Price, M.A., of St. John's College, 

 Cambridge, penned a note on this subject which appears in the last published 

 part of the ■ Proceedings ' of the Chester Society of Natural Science (No. 4, 

 p. 209). It is as follows ; — " The young Thomases, of Llandudno (whom 

 I commended to you long ago as promising observers), have succeeded in 

 taming certaiu species of Butterfly, not the Common White, which is too 

 shy. They began by offering cautiously a sugared finger, on which the 

 insect perched and fed, returning when shaken off, and finally following 

 their friends up and down the garden, and alighting on them fearlessly." 



